UNION ARENA: BLEACH Starter Deck Upgrade Guide
UNION ARENA: BLEACH is the most fun I’ve had playing a TCG in a long time. Figuring out how to play it, however, can be a bit of a challenge. We’re so early in its history and there isn’t a ton of info around about how to build a proper deck.
After some testing and playing, however, I’ve put together a deck I’m pretty happy with, and it’s an upgrade of the fantastic UNION ARENA: BLEACH starter deck.
The UNION ARENA: BLEACH starter deck comes packed with powerful cards. Here’s how you can fairly easily upgrade it to be even stronger and more consistent.
What you will need in order to build this deck
Of course while you can easily buy the singles you need to upgrade your starter deck via TCGPlayer, I was able to build this deck buying one starter deck, and two booster boxes. I highly recommend you pick up one or two booster boxes yourself. They’re conveniently priced much lower than other booster boxes and yet pack a punch with 16 packs per box. What’s more, the pull rates feel really, really good in these boxes. I got many super rares and parallel arts as well as foil Action Point cards in both of the boxes I purchased.
My pulls were so good that I easily got more in value than what I spent on the box – value I then used to trade for some of the key pieces for this deck.
BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War - Booster Box
BLEACH Starter Deck
Bleach Purple Deck List – Starter Deck Upgrade Guide
While you can undoubtedly make this deck with a few more expensive cards, I’m going with a slightly more budget friendly build for this deck. Still, I was able to test this deck out at a local event and it felt quite strong.
Many of the pieces to this deck can be found directly out of the box from the BLEACH starter deck. The rest I was able to pull from just two booster boxes (along with making a few additional trades).
Let’s look at how this deck works, what your ideal curve might look like, and a few other tricky situations that you could handle with this deck.
Turn one and zero cost cards
As you will be using your own cards in your Energy Line to play more powerful cards down the line, it is absolutely integral that you start your hand with zero cost characters. Although just one will do, I find a turn one opening where I can play multiple characters (when going second) to be very effective.
This deck runs twelve zero cost characters, but only three different ones. They are:
Ichigo Kurosaki
Renji
Uryu Ishida
Ichigo Kurosaki
Of those zero-cost characters, your most reliable choice is usually going to be Ichigo. You’ll need him in play to use powerful actions like the iconic Getsugatensho, or to use it as a target for your Raid ability later on. If I could have just one zero-cost character in my opening hand, it would be this Ichigo.
Uryu Ishida
Meanwhile, Uryu can be highly effective as well. Like most card games early on in their life, UNION ARENA doesn’t have boatloads of draw support. However, also like most card games, the more cards you see throughout the game, the more likely you are to find what you need in order to win. Uryu helps you start seeing additional cards as early as your first turn. He also helps you get cards into your sideline, which will help you remove those cards later on in order to gain powerful abilities.
Renji Abarai
Zero-cost Renji is mostly in this deck to give you something to play turn one and to use as a Raid target later on for your incredibly powerful, bigger Renji.
Ichigo Kurosaki and Getsugatensho
If you are a fan of the anime, you won’t need much of an introduction to Getsugatensho. Ichigo’s signature move feels boarderline broken in this game. Why is it so good? Even if you have just a zero-cost Ichigo in play, if you pop one of these actions you can sideline any character with 5000 battle points or less.
This is one of the strongest cards in all of the Bleach set right now, and it’s going to be your best weapon and way out of most scenarios. It’s also the main reason Ichigo is the core backbone of your deck. This deck runs thirteen Ichigo character cards, making the odds fairly good you’ll have him in play when you manage to draw a Getsugatensho.
While we’ve looked at the one Ichigo already, let’s take a look at him in his stronger forms below.
One-cost Ichigo Kurosaki
There’s a couple of reasons why this character card is included in my deck apart from the fact his name happens to be Ichigo Kurosaki. While he’s a great target for both my Raid characters and Tensho, he’s got a few tricks unique to him as well that make him strong.
First of all, he helps you thin your deck out a bit via his “When Played” effect. You can take a look at your top card and either add it to your hand or put it in your sideline. This helps with your general goal of getting more cards into your sideline that you can use for powerful effects later.
Meanwhile, he has a very powerful “Color” trigger ability, letting you immediately play a character from your sideline if he’s chosen from your face down life points.
Three-cost Ichigo
While he doesn’t have a rare Trigger ability (or any Trigger for that matter), this Ichigo packs a punch for a relatively cheap character. His “When Attacking” effect makes him a 4000 BP character – the magic number that seems to be the standard right now for attackers in the game. Meanwhile, he also grants two energy when on your Energy Line – a fact which can be very helpful to play more powerful cards.
Raid Ichigos
Apart from Getsugatensho, it’s helpful to have plenty of options in your deck to use as targets for your Raid Ichigos. While Raid boost doesn’t enable you to play your characters for any less energy, it does grant you added effects and can also helps you move characters up to the front line and activate them if they are rested.
In this upgraded deck, I run two 104 Ichigos (found in the starter deck) and just one 041 Ichigos. Both are strong with different effects that have their own uses. The starter deck Ichigo can attack your opponent directly, while the rarer and more valuable Ichigo you can find in packs has a pretty crazy effect that essentially scales indefinitely. You can use this to potentially wipe out any card on the field when played.
Although this deck (which was built only from cards I received in products and via trading those cards with others) runs just three raid Ichigo in total, the eventual goal would be turn four or maybe even six in total (four of the 41 and two of the 104 for example).
Renji Abarai is a secondary attacker
Now that we’ve talked at length about Ichigo, let’s talk about Renji who basically functions as your second main attacker. I happened to pull a Renji and traded for three more, so I actually have the full playset of him in my deck.
Renji Abarai’s Raid character is incredibly strong. He has the ability to gain Damage 2 which means you will gain two life cards from a direct hit to your opponent. Meanwhile, his Raid effect is even more enticing. Assuming you have enough cards in your sideline, you can lower an opposing character’s BP by 3000 – enough to sideline many characters entirely.
Because you really want to perform Raid with this character when he’s played, I’ve included five other Renji characters to make that a bigger possibility.
Supporting characters and their role in the BLEACH Purple deck
Now that we’ve covered the main attackers and core strategy at this deck, let’s look at some of the supporting characters I’ve included in this list and how they help.
Kisuke Urahara
I’ve included two different Kisuke cards – one with energy generation and one with a powerful effect, letting you sideline three cards from your deck and bring back one Purple character. The former is an easy way to get more energy on the field, while the latter gives you an easy way to get more cards into your sideline (something which will be helpful with the effects of other characters).
Tenjiro Kirinji
Fans of the anime will remember how this squad zero character effectively brings back several of our favorite characters from near death state to fight back once again. His character in this game works similarly, letting you bring back characters from your sideline. Because many of your cards will have you sidelining cards, this effect can be helpful in bringing back those characters to your hand. My favorite thing to do here is to use this on a Raid character that was defeated or simply sidelined.
Rukia Kuchiki
Last but not least, Rukia is probably your strongest supporting character. She’s got high BP meaning you can use her in battle. Meanwhile, her abilities lend much needed draw support and the ability to grand incremental BP to your characters. While 500 may not sound like a ton, it’s enough to swing the odds in your favor in what might otherwise be a stalemate.
Two additional and powerful event cards
While we’ve talked about the power of Getsugatensho, there are two additional and powerful event cards worth mentioning in this deck. Those are Bankai and Department of Research and Development. Bankai is a staple in any BLEACH deck as it allows you to re-up your Action Point cards and play additional actions in a turn – something which can massively put you ahead of the competition.
Meanwhile, the Research and Development card is a powerful card search engine, helping you search out key cards that might be just out of your reach. It also lets you put cards into your sideline, which helps keep it stocked and ready to use for other effects. Another handy combo you can do with Research and Development is to simply sideline a character you want in your hand then use your Tenjiri or Kisuke to bring it back. When used in this way, the card lets you bring two cads into your deck.
While other cards let you draw cards (Substitute Soul Reaper), the ability to see five cards and choose one or two gives you much more choice than just simply top decking, making this my preferred draw engine Event card for Bleach Purple.
I hope this guide helps you build your own BLEACH Purple deck! While there are more competitive ways to build this deck, those builds will also be more expensive. While purchasing singles and building your ideal Purple deck is certainly a viable option, you can apply this same thought process to your own Starter Deck upgrade deck, using whatever powerful cards you pull to fill in the gaps as you go!
